Measurement of urea-formaldehyde resin distribution as a function of MDF fiber size by laser scanning microscopy

Abstract

A technique has been developed to show the extent of the distribution of the adhesive on the fiber surface. This involves treatment of the resinated fibers with the dye Toluidine blue O, to quench the autofluorescence of the wood materials, to show only the fluorescence of the UF resin in the presence of the dye. The results indicate that this method is a simple and practical way to understand UF resin coverage on wood fibers. With image analysis, the adhesive has been shown to cover a small percentage (3.5%) of the fiber surface, although the percent by weight (based on wood fiber) of resin is much more (13%). The fiber size strongly affects the resin coverage ratio and the chance to collect resin droplets, but it is not significant in the resin-droplet’s size distribution. Decreasing the proportion of shorter fibers is beneficial in improving resin coverage uniformity. A model for calculating the resin-coverage ratio was developed. The resin coverage is about 4.8% for the resin content of 13% by the model.